Just a few years ago, no party dared to express doubts over the Energiewende(Germany’s transition to green energies) or to question it for fear of being accused of environmental blasphemy and treason.
But as the technical and economic problems of the Energiewende become ever more glaring, people and politicians are now speaking up.
One Germany engineering professor, Dr. Ing. Hans-Günter Appel is now asking if the project “is near the end”.
So far Germany has installed some 100,000 MW of wind and solar capacity, more than enough to more than supply the country during a windy and sunny day. But unfortunately the sun doesn’t shine 24 hours a day and the wind often stops blowing, sometimes for days and even weeks. They cannot be relied on. At times these two sources of energy put out almost zero power.
The green energies of wind and sun are horribly inefficient and with Germany’s electricity rates at close to 30 euro-cents for each kilowatt-hour, they are among the world’s highest. Worse, there’s no end in sight to the price spiral, which happens to be the opposite of what citizens had originally been promised. Appel writes:
The prices have been rising year after year, and in a few years will exceed 50 euro cents per kilowatt-hour if the Energiewende continues as planned by the federal government.”
1 coal energy worker = 20 green energy workers
The engineering professor also warns that the country’s grid stability is becoming increasingly precarious and that preventing a collapse is getting tougher with each passing year. As this is becoming ever more apparent even to technical laypersons, Appel writes that one huge obstacle against reform is the sheer ignorance by Germany’s ideologically-driven politicians, such as Green Party politicians Jürgen Trittin and Bärbel Höhn, who for example majored in sociology mathematics. They have near zero understanding of power grid technology.
For example, Dr. Appel cites Ms. Höhn, who considers it a success that in renewable energies 370,000 workers are working to deliver 33% of the nation’s power. Coal power plants, on the other hand, employ just 20,000 and deliver some 40%. Dr. Appel writes:
One cannot imagine a better description for the senseless Energiewende policy. Using these figures it takes 20 green power workers to produce the same energy as a single conventional power worker.”
But there is hope. Some politicians are now beginning to understand the huge threats posed by green energies and are now starting to notice the “growing resistance against the impacts of the Energiewende“.
Appel writes that the message could even be finally reaching Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has been stunningly oblivious to the glaring problems of the Energiewende. Appel comments:
Rarely do we hear any more the words climate rescue and Energiewende from the Chancellor. These are being mostly excluded.”
Read more at No Tricks Zone
My crystal ball tells me that californiawende will have the same fait. One thing about California is many residents have friends and family in other states. What will a man who can only buy a puny electric car think when his brother in Texas brags about his new pickup? What will a house wife think when her high school best friend in Montana is paying one third the cost for electricity.
Legislating pollution out of existence has been surprisingly effective. It forced industries to innovate or die. However, carbon dioxide is not pollution, and renewables are not viable without conventional generators. I don’t believe environmental activists will achieve the miracles they expect .
Yes, the hubris is absolutely epic. CO2 labeled as a “pollutant”. What next? No more floods – just “H2O pollution”? Are wild fires really a form of oxygen pollution? Is sunburn caused by “ultra violet pollution”?
Seems to me that CO2 is two parts oxygen… Isn’t oxygen therefore two-thirds to blame as a pollutant? …And that carbon stuff… that’s gotta go too!
“The sky is falling!” used to be understood universally as a joke. Now the left thinks maybe they can’t sell that.
Just think of all that land that could be used for growing crops is being wasted by having windturbines and solar panels built on them. Going Green and Going Broke
Spurwing, there are currently 24 million acres of American agricultural land in the Conservation Reserve Program. That land is idled from crops or livestock grazing. Proof that the world’s food supply is brim full.